Hand of Doom
by ArmageddonClan
Summary: Post-Stench of Purexo FF Part 4. The musical decision has been finalized, but something unexpected comes up ... leading to journeys and revelations both mental and physical.
1. Chapter 1 - Falling Rain

Turns out it's pointless to talk about definite finales! Almost a year later, this continues from "Green Fairy"!

Chapter song titles:

1) Labyrinth / Dream Theater

2) Manowar / Sabaton

3) Nocturnal Rites / Europe

4) Manowar

Thanks to AgentUrsa for some inevitable familiar elements!

\- ArmageddonClan

 **Chapter 1: Falling Rain / Wither  
**

Almost in time with the hangover becoming tolerable at last, the rain first lessened in intensity, until the clouds parted and the sun came through. It felt almost too fitting, as the drinking session had certainly been a success. Now they would be a four-piece doom metal band.

Jo drove the Toyota; they had just turned from the narrow forest road to the larger one that passed right through the town of Rocks Falls.

She considered how for years – practically all through the time she had played guitar - she had thought thrash metal to be the ultimate form of musical expression. It was somewhat of a leap to the unknown to leave it now.

But if she was honest, thrash metal had a shitload of rules to be observed. Restrictions. Practically, the core of the music always had to be aggression. There had to be beats you could pit to. There could be slower, quieter or melodic parts, but how you led the song in or out of them had to happen through aggression, again.

Jo almost chuckled aloud as she remembered the infamous "0 percent" review for Metallica's Master of Puppets, written by the Metal Archives user UltraBoris. She could agree that the record, while a certified masterpiece, had done a lot for narrowing down what was acceptable. Further hammering down the rules. Though that was mostly the fault of the countless imitators.

Doom metal naturally had its own set of rules. But if you thought of something like Black Sabbath, they could do almost anything while staying within their recognizable sound. Or if they'd expand to occult rock / metal (though it was already getting crowded), it would be a further degree of freedom.

"So that was in good spirit, you and Kim cursing at the other all through the morning?" Ian asked from the passenger seat. Judging from the slouched position and the frown on his face, his condition was still more severe, and he was certainly not fit to drive yet.

"Right. Setting up a positive chemistry."

It was naturally too early to tell, as things could turn sour yet, but the start could have been much worse. Jo could never have imagined Black Flame of Sin – the neoclassical power metal band she had auditioned for – behaving the same in all their professional rigidity.

Jo also still remembered some of the more … esoteric … things they had discussed while high on absinthe. Or was it just about relationships? In any case, it was probably easiest to sum up that she was rather a human, instead of something with wheels.

Now there was naturally much left to do. Like decide the band name, get the necessary equipment, and a rehearsal space. She and Ian probably needed to leave Antisound Studio behind at last, too.

It was possibly easiest to start from the gear.

The Toyota was slowly cruising through the town. A large, ugly green camo painted pickup truck right in front of them meant Jo could not exactly drive any faster.

Ian's voice alerted her. He was pointing to the left side of the street, suddenly almost excited despite his suffering.

"What's that, a music shop? I didn't know Rocks Falls even had one."

The brick building looked old and almost disused, but there was an "open" sign, and lights inside. The name of the store was Forte Music, which was somewhat unimaginative, but traditional. Even through the dusty shop window, Jo could recognize the guitars hanging on the walls.

She turned for the parking lots in front of the store, and they disembarked.

…

It was a find, all right. To pass through this small town, and find a deluxe neck-through BC Rich Warlock in dark red. Now Ian thought he deserved it, and now there was no danger for it being blown up in the self-destruct sequence of an Agent HQ. Or something.

You fought the fucking SCEPTRE. And the MSA. Now all you need is to play this, Ian thought to himself, as the Toyota was on its way again, Rocks Falls long left behind. The guitar was in its hard case, propped against the back seat. The few riffs he had played in the store had felt just right, and the decision to take it had been a no-brainer.

Jo's ESP was a bit more top of the line compared to this, but this was no low end either. The price of a little over 1000 USD had not been a problem, but with the Agent sponsors - the Grieg Industries - up in smoke, there would likely not be any more refills. Well … time to get a job, then?

The hangover from the absinthe session at the cabin was almost a distant past now. Having their stomachs full from a local restaurant had helped as well. They'd be back at Antisound Studio before nightfall. All in all, a very successful day.

Of course … this level of gear meant Ian's playing and composing would have to live up to it. The fear would of course be - what if nothing came up? What if he would fail Jo, Erik and Kim?

That subject felt something familiar. Something Jo had played to him at one point. It had been the latter leg of their summer trip, after the broken Ka had given way to the nearly as old Fiesta.

"What was that song where the guy talks about an empty page and nothing coming up?"

"You mean the prog metal song? That's Dream Theater, Wither. What, you feel like that already?"

"No. I just wanted to recall."

Back then the song had felt fitting for whole another reason, as their life itself had felt like a never-ending loop. In retrospect, it was clear the trip had been going on too long, until Erik had taken contact. Ian remembered the routine - staying up late, watching videos of bands actually kicking ass out there, live, while he wasn't … and watching Jo in her sleep. Well, that part was endearing of course, but ultimately it had been a period of pure soul-crushing, wondering if he would ever have the courage to return to the world.

In a flash, Ian got an idea. It was almost blasphemy, but no-one would need to know. It didn't matter where the inspiration for the riffs would come from, as Kim would invent her own doom metal lyrics anyway. While the riff playing behind it could actually be titled something like "The curls of Jo's hair lit by the nocturnal glare of the laptop screen, part VII."

Fuck. That was outstandingly stupid, even by his standards.

"What?" Jo asked from behind the wheel, and Ian knew his expression had given something away.

"I was just thinking how to guarantee inspiration."

"Tell me. In full detail."

"Fuck. This is too stupid."

"All the better."

…

Back in the dimly lit Antisound Studio recording room.

Of course Ian needed to test his new weapon right away, playing slow, suitably doomy riffs through the Marshall half-stack at a rather low volume. Jo had to give credit to the method he had explained, ridiculous as it was. In Cyberpriest it would have been irredeemable. But maybe now, it would just be acceptable.

Jo didn't feel like playing herself. It had been a long day, and possibly she just needed to call it quits already. There would be a new day tomorrow.

She got up from the sofa. Or tried to. Suddenly the world tilted forty-five degrees to a direction she could not determine. This was accompanied by the headache from the early morning returning, but with an amplified vengeance. Like tenfold. Her vision was blurring. And this wasn't even the end of it, as an insistent urge to vomit joined the chorus.

In the middle of this mental cacophony, Jo found herself panicking like never before. What was wrong? What was happening to her? Absinthe shouldn't have after-effects like that.

Somehow she thought of SCEPTRE. Their experiments. Or her later adventures, the unexplained vehicular fall that shouldn't have been survivable.

Almost distantly she observed herself falling onto the floor, and Ian breaking away from the playing.

She remembered thinking of his disappeared chest scar … and at times, how long whatever was behind it now, if not SCEPTRE's metal heart, would keep beating?

But now she feared that the damage she had sustained herself would come to take its toll first.


	2. Chapter 2 - Hand Of Doom

**Chapter 2: Hand of Doom / Purple Heart  
**

Fuck, in big block letters, was mostly how Ian could sum up his thoughts.

He had not seen Russ agitated like that before. Though he had not said it aloud, it was like he was angry at Ian, for the whole cabin trip and drinking session. If it had been the trigger. Jo's rambling during the drive to the hospital had been frightening too, further amplifying the atmosphere of overreaching doom.

"They'll find traces of nanobots in my head. And then we'll get arrested again. They're not supposed to exist."

"Jo. Our names were cleared. Nothing like that can happen again. Just try to calm down. No time and you'll be in hands of people who know their shit," Ian had replied, trying to stay as calm as possible.

"But they could be in on it too. SCEPTRE. Or THRONE. Or if not that -"

There was no real arguing with this feverish line of thinking, so Ian quit trying.

That they had taken her in to the ward, and were taking their time, instead of just sending her away with a bottle of painkillers or antibiotics in hand, was certainly a further cause of concern.

As he sat in the corridor, under the glare of much too bright lights, Ian found his thinking going into unpleasant, but unavoidable directions. Extrapolating to the worst possible outcome.

What was best in life? A guitarist battle couple. And what was the worst? When only half of it remained, the one who remained playing out his sorrow. That would be a lifetime of doom metal inspiration, but in a way Ian never wanted to experience.

At first he had thought of something else. Something not at all worst. The possibility of an accidental junior guitarist on its way. But the symptoms had been so sudden and extreme, that it was unlikely.

He remembered something deeply messed up, something from way back, the treatment rooms in SCEPTRE's undersea Erehwon facility, and thinking of Jo in a hospital attire, going through them. It was almost as if that was happening now. Quadruple fuck.

With nothing else to do right now, Ian realized that Erik should need to know too, and took out his cell phone.

…

Salvageable Bodyparts, Jo thought in between the waves of nausea, and the beeps of the medical equipment, as she was lying on the bed with its upper part inclined. That had been René's lyric about the nightmarish recycling of cybernetic soldiers' body parts in a never-ending war.

The ridiculous thought was, that the universe had given her some temporary replacement, but now it was being reclaimed, or salvaged, leaving her to die. Like karma catching up to her at last, even though the MSA had cleared her of actual criminal charges.

She tried to think in rational terms … the doctor had said they'd do a CT scan, which sounded serious. And expensive. Russ would pay that from his insurance? That didn't seem right. They'd certainly need to compensate him from the remaining Agency funds.

Jo also knew she should just worry about getting better, instead of worrying of money at all, but she just couldn't help it.

…

At the cabin the atmosphere had changed from beer-fueled pretend doom to proper doom, Kim thought, as Erik had relayed Ian's short message. Kim couldn't easily tell what she was feeling, if anything. Maybe a sense of coldness. Kim knew her imagination was morbid, so it was absolutely natural for her to immediately think of the possibility that their four-piece doom band could become three-piece. Or most likely, it would be back to two in that case.

It was possibly a mental protection mechanism, to immediately think of the worst outcome. Then surprises could only be positive. But probably anything she would or could say now would be unwanted information. So she kept quiet.

Moments like these were the most uncomfortable to Kim. When she was possibly being asked to behave like a normal human being. Erik had known Jo for years, so what could Kim contribute now? Except to confirm her own misanthropy and inhumanity.

"Fuck. Was it the absinthe?" Erik broke the silence at last.

"She was fine in the morning. Just hung over," Kim replied.

"It could be nothing. Just a scare."

"Or then not."

Kim's last reply was out faster than her mind had processed consciously. But it couldn't be taken back. It was like the atmosphere of doom had thickened.

Erik nodded and said nothing.

"Fuck. Maybe I shouldn't have said that. But I'm fucking defective and you know that," Kim spat out. Like digging the hole underneath you deeper.

But Erik just let out a low laugh.

"Who isn't? 'We all are mentally unstable, and that gives us our sound.' I no longer remember who said that, and the quote may not be exact. Could have been the guitarist of Deicide. Or Morbid Angel."

Kim had feared something else, like Erik getting angry, or even unnecessarily sugary (though that was rare) so this was an unexpected positive surprise.

"I should tell you about defective," he went on. "You know, or actually you don't - because I haven't told this to anyone I've played with. I once had a twin. Henrik. We always tried to outdo the other, and he played drums too. Until he got to his head that he wanted to serve his country. Went to Afghanistan and did not return. And you know what I thought?"

Kim had no fucking clue, so she kept silent.

"Because he died, he wasn't a true over-man. And sometimes, I guess I feel guilty of that. So I keep pushing myself."

"That's screwed up."

"Right. But now you know."

Kim thought she felt better knowing this, though she couldn't even properly explain why. Maybe it was the knowledge that if Erik was capable of similar incorrect thinking, he wouldn't judge her. Well, to tell the truth, he hadn't ever judged her in any negative way. He was just Erik. Strong on his mountain. Or drum stool. Whatever.

…

As he sat, still waiting in the hospital corridor, Ian became aware of something changing. Like a sensation of warmth, that was spreading and slowly gaining in intensity. Until it was no longer warmth, but almost burning.

The sensation reached his heart, and he felt it jolt unpleasantly, beating now in an erratic pace and leaving him short of breath.

It was odd how the mind could change gears abruptly. He had been thinking of the famous Swedish glam / hard rock band, how a guitarist battle couple (though in separate bands) had been broken by a brain tumor, which could be in the worst case be repeating here with Jo. But suddenly Ian was thinking of wholly another Swedish hero. Someone he had actually had dreams about before.

Quorthon.

Why had the guy even composed a song named like that, Hammerheart? Did he know he was going to die early, and precisely from heart failure? And why was everyone Ian was thinking of now Swedish?

But in all seriousness, Ian was very much concerned with his own mortality now. He recalled Jo's full words –

"Or if not that, some twist of karma -"

In her delirium, she had actually vocalized the very same thought Ian considered now. Their time here being up due to the balance of the universe evening out the weight of their kills at last.

Though, to think of karma was probably going too far. Instead, it could be their wholly mortal enemies exacting vengeance. If not SCEPTRE, then those squatting fuckers, who had served the REX at their pyramid. So… Poisoning?

It was possibly just imagination, but Ian thought his vision was going dim.

Fuck. Now it was certainly not just imagination.

"I don't think I'm all right either -" he groaned to Russ sitting next to him. The aged studio owner did not seem to react first, until he snapped to alertness.

By that point Ian did not have full control of his body any more, so before Russ could catch him, he was sliding down from the bench toward the welcoming floor.


	3. Chapter 3 - Ride On

**Chapter 3: Ride On / Ninja**

Though anxiety reigned at the back of his mind, Erik thought that no-one could possibly say "That's screwed up" in as heartwarming manner as Kim had done. And she had led Erik to open up on a subject he would never have considered before.

But now there was a potential further cause for concern. Ian had been offline for over an hour, without relaying any further information. Erik had sent two messages, and nothing had come back.

It was well past 2 AM now, and he began to consider tactics.

Kim still had her license suspended, but Erik had not drunk more beer for several hours, so he should theoretically be OK for driving. Getting to Ian and Jo would require driving through most of the night, though.

But what else there was to do?

"Now Ian is not answering. I think we should get going," Erik said roughly.

Next to him, Kim rose wearily into sitting. "What? To the hospital? We won't be there before morning."

"That's right."

"Well, it's you driving. Your choice. No radio, and I should be able to sleep most of the way."

Erik could not shake the idea that this was somehow similar to Ian's and Jo's legendary drive through the night. But with the radio off, there should be no risk of sudden braking. Not that Erik would let his self-control down in that manner.

…

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

Ian didn't know if it was a good sign or not, to think of whether the heart monitor he was hooked to was programmed in C++, the language his fake identity Trevor Ashen had excelled in. Possibly it was just something to keep the restless mind occupied.

Well, at least he was not dead yet. But he was not sure how much time had passed. Apparently he had been unconscious for some time, and now he was in a hospital bed of his own, the devices watching over him.

He too had needed to vomit, and that had been scary, as he had been certain he would go into cardiac arrest just from the strain. The previous meetings with the throne had been child's play in comparison.

To have a nurse walk him through the process, that could have been beyond mortifying. But it had felt like happening to someone else already. In other words, dissociation.

A blood test had been taken too, but it was still being processed.

Somehow Ian knew what he needed to do. To take off, and begin the stealth infiltration part. He knew it was unwise to the maximum, but if he was going to end up dead anyway, he'd want to find Jo before that. To hold her one more time. The actual sensible objective would be to find out what he had been poisoned with, if that was even the case, but it seemed too much to take on with his limited knowledge. Unless there were traitors roaming the hospital, and he would manage to extract information by force.

He was well aware of three things: 1) His plans and thoughts were not mentally sound. 2) Even trying to get up would end up as a likely failure. 3) If he got that far, ripping off the monitor wires would alert the nurses, and carting the device with him would draw even more attention.

But he didn't care.

…

The insides of Erik's truck, with the dashboard as the only light, and the monotonous road that zoomed by in the headlights, was like a dimension of its own, a twilight zone where normal rules would not apply.

Kim had not dozed off yet. So she found herself talking almost without conscious control, continuing on the subject they had started at the cabin. She rationalized that it was in response to what Erik had revealed, giving yet something more in return.

"Hate. That's the first thing I remember. I think the first thing I hated … was God."

Erik turned to look at her. So far, this was like perfectly normal metalhead territory, right? Hating God. Or killing him.

"Being brought up religiously … that was probably bound to happen. But I didn't fear, like I was supposed to. I just hated. I thought, send me to Hell, I don't care. It just proves what a shithead you are."

Erik nodded and grunted something indecipherable. Possibly meaning he understood.

"After that, I guess it expanded to people. Because then too, I wouldn't play by their rules. To catch on to how you were supposed to act, all the fucking hidden cues. And they gave me endless shit, so I just thought, fuck you too. That was through most of school. But then I found my calling, doing security, because most of the time you meet very few people, or if you do, you probably have a reason, and a right, to kick their ass."

Kim thought she had given some kind of abridged version before, but this was the full version. On her scale, it was quite a lengthy monologue.

Erik's reply was much shorter.

"When you kicked my ass, that was one of the best things to happen to me."

Kim remembered the situation, how broken down Erik had been at the time. It almost got her emotional. And what had followed had been quite a rocky ride. The rise and fall of the short-lived Necrotic Dust … a trip down to a government facility straight out of Hell, and another like the weirdest acid trip one could ever imagine … and one wrecked Smart Fortwo.

That they were here now, it was nothing short of a miracle, Kim understood now. Especially on this mundane and somehow – human? - trip it felt suddenly very enormous.

There was also something else she realized.

"But after that, I was like a total ass at times. Like trying to drive you away," Kim replied.

"I think that was settled ages ago. But if it still bothers you, there's something you could do. Dream of the best fucking doom you will compose, against my shoulder."

Erik's wish bordered on the ridiculous. But after being up for so long, it was also very much inviting. Kim closed her eyes, leaned against Erik, and began to imagine a bass rig with a ridiculous amount of kilowatts. That mental image blended with the drone of the engine, and she thought only faintly that such power would also amplify all the mistakes in her playing as well, before she fell asleep.

…

A few times Ian had been close to detection. But moving low and ducking back behind a corner when necessary had saved his ass so far. He was frightened of the constant pounding of his heart though. He really should have been just lying down and resting.

The monitor's alarm had surely triggered, so there was no time to waste.

The bad news was, he didn't have a hundred percent sure sense of direction. He'd checked the corridor he and Russ had waited in, and now Russ wasn't there? Was that a good sign, or not?

At this hour the traffic was minimal. It was both good and bad, as the encounters were fewer, but getting found out would be more likely too.

Ian rounded a further corner. One more room to check; the coast was clear. The nurses were probably in his room right now, having found him absent. They'd probably sound a further alarm any second now.

Ian opened the door slightly and crept in.

Sure enough, Jo was there. She looked like – like she occupied the physical world only halfway? Hopefully that was just Ian's own delirious thinking, but in any case it made his heart ache even worse.

For one more time, his mind reminded that this wasn't what he was supposed to be doing. But he was already closing the distance.

Jo was certainly awake. She turned and saw him now.

"Ian? What the -"

At this point her words were drowned by the hiss of blood in Ian's ears, as he managed to climb up to her bed and close her in his arms. Too late he realized that it had taken the last of his strength, as his vision blacked out. But if this was the end, it had been worth it.


	4. Chapter 4 - Die For Metal

**Chapter 4: Die For Metal**

In retrospect, Jo thought it was obvious that given the situation, this was exactly what would happen. Give him a corridor layout, and the knowledge that she was somewhere in there, and Ian would treat it like an Agent mission, completely ignoring his own condition.

By now Russ had returned with the doctor.

At least that much Jo could tell, that Ian had not managed to kill himself with this stunt, but had ended up passed out in her lap. And now she fought the urge to be irresponsible in turn, and not give him back to them.

She thought she was feeling better now. But to her credit, some of her paranoia had been right.

The scan had indeed revealed something out of the ordinary, and this had thrown off the diagnosis initially. Minor residue of an unknown material, but it wasn't likely a cause for actual concern. The neurologist had been a bit out of his depth. No wonder, they would have needed an Above Top Secret-cleared physician.

The general practitioner who had seen Jo initially had a little trouble speaking. Probably she was finding the scene just a bit too funny.

"Very well. The second blood test came through. We have ruled out practically everything else. This appears to be a case of acute food poisoning. Let me verify, that on the night before, you had been drinking heavily?"

Jo thought she was going just a bit red in the face.

"Yes. Absinthe. With burned sugar cubes," she tried to reply as matter-of-factly as possible.

"Combined with lack of rest and dehydration, it would make the symptoms worse."

It had began late in the evening, so –

Suddenly Jo knew it with quite perfect clarity. It had to have been the steak house in Rocks Falls. It appeared they had been trying to accomplish the goal of "everyone dies" with food instead, if the falling rocks and rapids failed to do that. Probably not out of malice, just bad hygiene.

"Do you think … it's the same with him?" Jo asked.

"His sample is still processing. But if he drank just as heavily, and ate the same food, that seems more than likely. And now ... we would need him back."

Jo thought that given the new information, she could comply - gladly. Entirely without incident.

…

The sun had been up for an hour now.

Erik knew his lack of sleep was such that he was a danger to himself and all others on the road. But the town and its hospital were close now.

Suddenly his phone beeped. He knew it was the beep of an arrived message.

And it happened like a reflex. His foot went on the brake pedal, applying just a bit too overzealous pressure.

The wheels locked and in just the space of a few seconds, the truck came to a halt in the middle of the lane. Kim was jolted rather rudely against the seat belt.

Erik got the phone in his hand and read the message.

 _Getting discharged now. Sorry to keep you worried. -I_

Kim looked at Erik with clear displeasure on her face.

…

As he and Jo exited the hospital and walked toward Russ's pickup, Ian tried to analyze their mode of transport. It was sort of like Sleep Cute, but upright. Without Jo to support him, he would likely have fallen on his ass. And vice versa. Ian thought it fit perfectly.

The sunlight also hurt, but in a good way. He knew he was being over-dramatic, but still it felt like getting his life back. Again. And getting Jo back as well.

As the poisoning was bacterial, they were to eat antibiotics to make sure to finish it off properly. And the restaurant would be sure to get a visit from the three-letter authorities. The FDA, was it? That too sounded like guys with black coats, sunglasses and guns, though they certainly weren't.

"I guess I went a bit far," Ian said.

Jo just shook her head.

"You didn't manage to kill yourself. And the doctors got to see a bit of … just how Agents do things."

"Right."

…

Before heading to Antisound Studio, Erik and Kim were doing some random sightseeing in the town.

Alone for a moment, Erik's phone beeped for a second time.

He checked that it was a video message from Ian, and pressed Play. The image was almost completely out of focus, but judging from the vague shapes it had to be the studio.

Almost certainly, it was something recorded and sent by accident.

Erik strained his ears to hear. He recognized a slow doomy riff playing. Then there was a voice, which had to be Jo.

"Let me guess. This whole song is about the food incident. The epic despair, which sinks deeper and deeper. Until finally there's a sort of catharsis."

Ian's voice answered.

"Yeah. There could be some harmony riff, which represents the fluff explosion. As much as doom allows."

"And Kim writes her own lyrics and suspects nothing."

"Precisely."

Erik shook his head and almost cursed aloud. Those - he didn't even know what to call their guitarists right now. Only one thing was clear. This evidence needed to be gone. Permanently. Despite everything he had revealed to Kim, and what she had revealed to him, this she didn't ever need to know.


End file.
